Ukraine Gas Ring: Western Oligarchs to Take Charge

Syria is the new flashpoint in a war between the West and the East. Meanwhile, on the Ukraine front of this war guns have fallen silent. The people of the East of Ukraine (Novorossiya) are now trying to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. The perpetrators of that civil war now move to collect on their misdeeds. Here’s a report on the oligarchs parlaying for their position along the Ukraine gas ring, a money machine of dastardly proportion.

The civil war that ripped Ukraine apart is now over. I can tell this instantly by reading how the New York Times has begun to refashion history. The most recent articles paint a wonderfully journalistic painting of a fearful Kiev populace, shuddering and quivering just in case the rebels in the East, and their hordes of Russian regulars should try and take over all Ukraine. The other key indicator the war in Ukraine has ended is the Western banking wolves are moving in. The energy companies; Dutch Royal Shell, Avante Petrolem, ARCO, along with lesser known entities like BG Group, Naftogaz and Ukrnafta now surface in news to reveal the dirty dealing game that went on underneath all this Ukraine killing. Yes, you always knew it was about money, the instant you read Vice President Joe Biden’s son got a position in Ukraine energy, your fears the “fix” was on were verified. What you did not know, was the extent to which the people of this country are cheated, robbed, enslaved by the Petro Poroshenko’s arrayed there. But as the war draws to a close these notorious Ukraine billionaires are being supplanted. The gas ring that powers a corrupt system is being taken over.

Lords Of the Ring

click on the image to enlarge

It’s not that hard to understand how governmental control is leveraged to funnel money through the state bank down to the Oligarchs who own smaller banks in Ukraine. Completing this “ring” the energy companies Naftogaz and Ukrnafta are at the end of an investment and lending cycle that is completed by the “guarantee” supplied by Poroshenko’s government. The system is actually not so complicated as one might thinks. Credit from Ukraine’s state bank is extended to the smaller, oligarch controlled banking institutions. For a small margin of 1-2%, Ukraine’s richest cadre of business people gets to use essentially taxpayer money to fund their banking operations. Phase two of the process comes in the form of oligarch owned banks investing money in companies like Naftogaz and Ukrnafta at a substantially higher rate. These energy investments are then converted into government guaranteed bonds or securities. The final step in the process involves gas revenues from reserves and from Russia/Gazprom transit subsidies being paid out to the various entities.

As you can see, the circle of credit-insurance-low liability becomes a perfect money filtering machine. This is not new mind you, the system has been in place since the fall of the Soviet Union. As was the case with La Cosa Nostra, or the Sicilian mafia in US lore, the system resembles racketeering, with everybody involved taking a piece of the pie. In the case of Ukraine, the pie is in fact the hard earned livelihoods of every-single-solitary Ukrainian citizen. They are the ones “guaranteeing” the oligarchs’ investment, which is in fact no investment at all. Now for the interesting part, let me tell you about the part where Western oligarchs take over. This is where the battle for Ukraine has been settled, not at a conference in Minsk, but high atop some skyscraper owned by fabulously wealthy men.

Ukrnafta is the largest producer of oil and gas in Ukraine. A subsidiary of state company Naftogaz Ukrainy, the company is the key to our gas ring, and to understanding the economic battle for Ukraine. You see there is a geo-strategic battle going on, as well as an energy war. We’re focused now on the money behind the war. Ukmafta plays a complex role in this system of oligarch control. With revenues flowing to the parent company from branches like gas stations, oil refining, Russian gas transit features, and drilling operations Ukmafta is supposed to fuel bond and security annuities and dividends, its supposed to pay back the Ukraine people in the form of profits. But this is not what happens. Securities issued based on the liquidity of Ukmafta have never seen dividends paid. The marginal investor in this company has never made a dime, and neither have the people of Ukraine.

Today Ukmafta is broke – the ring is being broken temporarily. The people of Ukraine have promised to stand for the company’s debts. The oligarchs are guaranteed their money back. But there’s no money in Ukraine’s treasury, the whole house of cards is about to collapse, and Poroshenko must somehow appease the cadre now. As conspiratorial and crazy as this sounds, I assure you the truth is far more monstrous and devious than any fairytale. Now I’ll explain the Western oligarch takeover of our Ukraine gas racket.

The Brokerman

Enter a man named Mark Rollins. A recent Kyiv Post article called him an “Enigmatic British native” – the man slated to take the reins at bankrupt Ukmafta. Well I’m here to help Kyiv Post, and the rest of the world, sort out this enigma. The BG Group VP has been a key figure in some of the most profitable and dynamic corporate takeovers/restructures in energy business history. The news speaks of the executive’s associations with such industry giants as; Shell, Clyde Petroleum, Nuon, Avante Petrolem and ARCO, but says nothing about what he’s done for those entities. Before I carry on explaining Rollins’ role, we have to understand Ukmafta is 50 percent plus one share owned by Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas company Naftogaz, with the remaining 42 percent being owned by the cadre I mentioned and Ukraine oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskiy. For the purposes of consolidating this report, I shall refer to Kolomoiskiy from now on, when referring to the oligarch share of the “gas ring” I speak of.

Back to Mr. Rollins, his role for BG Group is vital to our understanding of what is about to happen in Ukraine. BG Group, the largest supplier of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) gas to the United States, and one of the largest in the world overall. Tracking down the key people of BG Group we find familiar names and faces. Form non-executive chairman of BG Group Andrew Gould’s lineage we see the world’s largest oil field development firm, Schlumberger Limited. Beneath this company’s dealings all too familiar banking and investment names arise. This press release from 2004 was an easy find to tie in the investment tentacles of Rothschild and Goldman Sachs International. For 1o00 linkages simply Google companies like Schlumberger + Rothschild (executive trading) or any other player in this game.

To save time, please assume the same play is going on over Ukmafta and our “gas ring.” Dutch Royal Shell’s bid to buy BG Group also bears scrutiny if you’ve got the time for research. It’s Rollins’ role that central to the Ukraine game though. Put simply, he’s the deal maker in between the former beneficiaries of all this gas, and the future ones out to the West. My contention is not rocket science; Rollins has been the “go to man” for such dealings from Kazakhstan (WikiLeaks), to Dallas.

The Rothschild part is complex, but typical too. This Reuters report speaks of BG’s appointment of Rothschild during the BG North Sea offshore business. But one can find dozens of collaborative ventures where BG, Rothschild and Goldman Sachs play a role, from Australia to Venezuela and beyond. Rather than bore the reader with a string of nefarious connections, consider only that Rothschild’s Director of the CIS, Giovanni Salvetti, advises Petro Poroshenko.

In order to save time and space, what’s essentially going on is a takeover of this Ukraine gas ring by BG Group’s controlling elite. Dutch Royal Shell plays a role, but the backers of that conglomerate; Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, N. M. Rothschild & Sons and Bank of England, shift the real focus to reveal who we are referring to when we say “the West.” For the purposes of framing world conflict and chaos, these are the culprits. I’ll just insert the head of the Rothschild family, Nathaniel Charles Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild.

The End – A New Oligarchy Begins

At this moment right wing extremists sponsored by Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko are forming up to occupy Maidan Square in Kiev again. You see the citizens of Urkaine are already onto this money ring that has sapped their legacy, killed their brothers and sisters who speak Russian, and ruined their economy utterly. The protests against Poroshenko the other day will prompt the action my research colleague, Dutch political analyst Holger Eekhof suggests. The “ring” I’ve described, it’s a machine that has to have new owners, new figureheads. These former Oligarchs, it’s now in their best interest to fade out of view of the public eye. The private banks they own, their high profile control of everything from chocolate to dish washer detergent, it will appear to come to an end. Ukraine’s citizens will now pay for a new energy cartel. They’ll live, work, borrow, buy, and die to pay for Westerners’ lavish wants and needs. NATO may not have moved in, Washington probably never strategized Ukraine would really be part of the EU, the power play was very likely about changing bankers, after all.

Finally, if the reader would like to discover who ultimately benefits from suffering in Ukraine, then read how Schlumbergers and Rothschilds bathe in diamonds, drape themselves in fashion by Givenchy, and how their castles were magically restored after Hitler’s Nazis came to the lovely woods surrounding Château of Ferrières. You may get sick to your stomach with the realization, all this gas and oil perpetuates the same hierarchy Napoleon swore to crush. But it’s all in the name of capitalism, progress, and socio-economic growth for the multitude finally employed by the system. As for the Obama’s, Biden’s and bit players in this human drama, they’re simply remora, opportunists rising mighty coat tails. They are pitiful in the end, at least from God’s perspective. Now that the reality is known, I guess it’s up to the people of Ukraine to administer a remedy. It’s unfortunate so many had to die or be displaced, over a little natural gas flame lit beneath a tiny boiler, in order to warm a poor family somewhere in Europe. But pennies do make dollars, my mother always used to say.

Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Electronic analytical journal New Eastern Outlook 2010-2018Republishing of the articles is welcomed with reference to NEO.The views of the authors do not necessarily coincide with the opinion of the editorial board.